


Home to Roost

by Dale Pike (yesiamTHATdalepike)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome predictive champagne for those fans who are clever enough to see it, But no sex., M/M, Oh so subtle, TJLC | The Johnlock Conspiracy, There is no sex in this champagne room, There's CHAMPAGNE in this champagne room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 06:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9310034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesiamTHATdalepike/pseuds/Dale%20Pike
Summary: Another kick-ass story from the only fan in the world* to accurately predict on Jan 2 that girl-on-bus would be Eurus Homes.  (*Oh, YOU did too?  Let's meet in Comments!  We could share CAKE!)





	1. How Telling.

**Author's Note:**

> Eurus Holmes: Let's see if I'm RIGHT...
> 
> (I honestly don't expect a single soul to read this... I just want it archived somewhere in case my bitch of a computer crashes. Plus I LOVE showing off, even if I'm the only one in the audience. For my other astoundingly accurate predictions to date; go read the short entries in my Spoiling Sherlock in Real-Time Series. For something sexy; go elsewhere. I already told you; there is NO sex in this champagne room. (It is kinda love-y though, so come back for some cuddling after you get off. It's also useful if you're a writer yourself. I did the research so you don't have to.)
> 
> ...I wrote this story two years ago after binging Series Three on Netflix. It was actually my first fanfic (but I wasn't posting back then). I promise: I haven't changed anything to update it. So, before the next episode airs and gives all the Eurus back-story, lets see what I thematically got wrong and right:
> 
> Her name: ok, wrong, obviously (but Selby is a great androgynous cricket-reference, and since the other two are named after cricketers, Sir A.C.D. would approve. He did in fact, when he came to me in a dream. Oh. Doesn't he do that to you?)
> 
> Her Brains: she's smarter than both her brothers, but (at least, apparently) completely bat-shit crazy
> 
> Her Whereabouts All This Time: at least partly in an asylum ("Winterfield is a combination of Winterton and Sedgefield"... the psychiatric facility that none other than Mark Gatiss grew up across the road from and no doubt inspired his love of horror)
> 
> Her Betrayal: Mycroft had a hand in the above, and also keeps knowledge of her from Sherlock
> 
> Her Age: I probably wrong on this one: I put her 3 years older than Mycroft, keeping in line with the whole "older sibling" therory, but now I think she is either his twin (older by minutes) or possibly Sherlock's.
> 
> Her Attitude: we'll learn that she's not actually evil, once we get that gun out of her hand. I don't think she'll be as motherly as I made her in this story, but she and Sherlock will definitely share a bond forged in amazing chips.
> 
> Her Insight: in the show, as in this story: she'll know exactly J and S's feelings for each other as soon as she sees them together and hint at this (to Sherlock's dismay)
> 
> Her Role: she's the fucking East Wind... have you not been paying attention?! (For what the "East Wind" really is, go read "The Therapist")
> 
> Her Demise: I don't think there'll be one and she'll just disappear again
> 
> Her Brother: She's going to be a catalyst into exposing Mycroft's Machiavellian antics. (Note: I'll be wrong about the "Murtagh" character, but he wasn't a bad stab in the dark... "Murtagh" is an Irish name derivative of Moriarty)
> 
> Mycroft: Will die. Seriously, if that's a spoiler for you at this point, you shouldn't be watching a mystery show. I was probably wrong about the accidental randomness of it. Though honestly; I still think the universe-being-lazy is the best way to dispatch Mycroft Holmes.
> 
> The Final Curtain*: the solution to the superficial "final problem" will involve some kind of public broadcast; wide-spread social links... i.e. drawing the audience itself in as a character. (Thank you to Joss Whedon for coining "you can't stop the signal"... it's like a rallying-cry for people like us.) 
> 
> *This won't happen until Series Five. Yes, there's a Series Five; it's probably already been filmed and they will announce the "shocking" air-date at the end of "Final Problem".

Mycroft lies, staring at the ceiling, and marvels at how keenly he feels the loss of his sibling.

Process, then. He brokers a treaty with the dark: that he will review the events in question once; examine how they came to this outcome, revisit his involvement and his intentions. That he will crack the gates for one glimpse inside, give the creature in there a stern talking-to and then declare the matter settled until morning.  

Or whenever. Or never. In his mind’s eye, Mycroft replays the discussions; his testimony; to police, to his parents. His body remembers the set of his muscles and his mind's eye projects before him his stony self. He's often accused of being lonely and it's almost never true. Mycroft has always preferred solitude and the company of his own thoughts.  But now, here in the dark and the silence, he finds himself scanning through his limited list of acquaintance for a confident.  Someone that he could talk to, in the likely event that this ghost still haunts him tomorrow.  The echo in his chest reminds him that the only person he ever trusted – the one who understood him best and that he could most relate to – is now gone.

Mycroft negotiates his peace.   _I did what I had to do._

He bars the gates.  Closing eyes, he wills the approach of sleep.

And just on the verge of it, he hears – no, _hears_ isn't quite right, but he perceives – the barest movement in the dark.  Mycroft suppresses the startle that rattles up his spine and rolls over to face the silent figure at his bedside.

"Sherlock."

The figure cocks his head slightly and Mycroft thinks; _if all other aspirations fail, at least you have cat burglary to fall back on._  He waits for whatever admonishment is coming his way.

"Mikey."

Sherlock hasn't called him that since he had just turned four and had also decided his own name was _not_ Billy (and even that last time he’d used either seemed to be in as much irony as the preschooler could then muster).  But there is no trace of jest in his tone now. If Mycroft didn't know better, he would have labeled it as uncertainty: the tremor of a child who calls out to the dark _Is someone there?_

For the first time since the onset of Sherlock's infant verbiage, Mycroft doesn't correct him.  "What is it?"

"Can I stay with you?"

"What's wrong with your bed?"  The moment it's out, Mycroft hears this as the exchange would typically be interpreted: the icy rebuke of the older brother; the cold expanse of years between them. _We never do this sort of thing._  But, of course, their relationship is not typical and the request is not typical and the last thing Sherlock can ever be accused of being is typical... and what Mycroft really means is _Are you alright, then?_  He still cringes at the sound of his own voice, especially since the recent break into deepness makes his response seem even harsher. He reminds himself that perhaps he expects too much of the little boy in front of him.

If his brother misses the nuances of Mycroft's response, however, he is undeterred.  "There's a monster under it."

Mycroft almost laughs outright at this. Sherlock hasn't believed in monsters under the bed since he was three, and even then he was pleased as punch at the prospect and tried to devise traps for them. Here they are now; playing at being normal with each other. He lifts the sheet and motions him in.

Sherlock bounds in beside him.  Mycroft decides to take a stab at the monster, as both of them are apparently wide awake anyway.

"Do you know what's happened?"  It’s occurred to him that, in the trauma of committing and then losing their eldest child, their parents may have completely forgotten—or decided not—to translate any of these events to the youngest.

"Yes," Sherlock replies matter-of-factly.

"So you know what an asylum is?"

"It's a place people go when they have a problem with their brains.  People that are different from everybody else. They go there to have doctors fix them so they don't hurt anybody. And when they come out, they’re not different anymore."

 _Out of the mouths of babes._ Mycroft swallows, wishing suddenly he had not broached this subject.  "It's..."

"It's not a very nice place."  Sherlock continues, in the same tone.

"You don't know that.  I'm sure that's not true."

"If it were, people wouldn't try to escape."

 _Ah.  So you know about that part too._  "Sometimes, when someone is ill... when they have a problem with their brain... it's hard for them to know that they have a problem."

"Why?"

"Because they think with that same mind.  It's sort of like trying to tell what colour the sky is, if you've only ever seen it through a curtain."

"The sky is blue."

"Yes, I know.  And you know.  But imagine that you had never been outside.  And you were sure that it was purple, because you’d only ever seen it through a red curtain.  And then, one day, someone came in and argued with you about it and told you that you needed to change your mind.”

“They could just lift the curtain.”

“Doctors aren’t as good at doing _that_ part. And it makes their patients afraid.”

"And then they run away?"

"And then they run away."

Sherlock nods in that way that he often does with Mycroft, as if to say _Well that makes perfect sense._  "Good thing we have policemen. They can find anybody."

Mycroft takes pride in never sugar-coating anything that he tells his younger brother, yet now finds himself on the verge of doing it for the second time in less than a minute.  He pauses just a fraction too long before replying and Sherlock fills in the silence; "That's what they do, right? They find people who are lost."

 _For the second time._ "That's right.  They find people who are lost."   _But they can’t always find someone who doesn’t want to be found._ A teaching moment, as well as a welcome diversion, occurs to him and he continues; "You know, if you ever get lost, you should..."

Sherlock waves his hand impatiently.  "Yes, yes, I know."  The exasperation in a five-year-old's tone brings another smile to Mycroft's lips. But his next statement removes it immediately and Mycroft is suddenly grateful for the darkness.  "You made it happen, didn't you?"

He knows Sherlock doesn’t mean the escape; he means the committal. Mycroft begins to reply with some kind of answer that shifts the blame to law enforcement or health professionals and it dies in his throat.  It isn’t actually true... the truth is buried so deep that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t piece it together. This had been a Holmes family decision; Mycroft sitting at the grown-up table; Mycroft filling in the pauses in the dialogue that his stunned parents couldn’t. Mycroft... twelve-going-on-forty-something and his heart quietly breaking.

And now, he has paused a fraction too long again. Despite his age, Sherlock is too smart to know when Mycroft is outright lying, and they have both witnessed the lioness too many times already to know there is nothing that would come between her and her cubs.  He briefly considers telling the truth – _we all made it happen_ – and then remembers how it felt to be five and the importance of parental infallibility. He decides to take the entirety of the fall for it.

"Yes," he says.

"Why?"  Not accusing, but curious.  As he is, of course.

"I was afraid. Of someone getting hurt." _And now that someone surely hates me and will never trust me again._

Then it hits him: he _has_ told Sherlock the truth.  Nothing _would_ come between... except another cub. Mycroft had been the swing-vote. Mycroft... with his testimony, with his words, with his choice. And it isn’t grief or loneliness or regret that is haunting him tonight.  It's fear; fear that words, such small, simple and often careless things could make changes with such sweeping enormity.  

The parting words, as so many others in their relationship, make sense now that Mycroft's brain, clunking with washing-machine slowness behind his elder, has finally caught up: _Caring is not an advantage, little brother. You will not always fear what you're capable of.  And, when you lose that fear, you will have the means to do extraordinary things._

For a moment, he wonders what the parting words to Sherlock had been... or word, as it had seemed to be only one.  Something short and fast and out of Mycroft's earshot. Something whispered from such an odd posture; leaning forward, hand resting on the crown of Sherlock’s head, fingers spread in the wild curls, pushing gently. And the youngest Holmes had ducked out of the hand-hold and grinned, like it was all a marvelous joke.

Mycroft doesn’t think he can handle talking about this much longer.

Fortunately, Sherlock switches gears with child-like changeability. His older brother idly wonders when he will start to grow out of this and just _focus_. “Why _is_ the sky blue, Mycroft?”

“It isn’t really blue, actually. It’s a spectrum of all colours as seen through our particular angle of the atmosphere.”

“But we call it blue.”

“Yes. Well. We have to call it something, don’t we? Find that prism of yours tomorrow and I’ll explain it to you.”

“We learned about the solar system yesterday and I got a demerit.” As he prattles on, he shifts position in bed; all elbows and knees and every single one of them jabbing into Mycroft.

“How could you possibly turn the orbit of our planet into an excuse for deviant behaviour?”

“I wanted to know how we _know_ that the Earth goes around the sun. Ms Thompson said it was because of gravity. I said yes, but why doesn’t the Earth’s gravity make the sun go around the Earth? Ms Thompson said it just doesn’t work that way and we weren’t supposed to learn about gravity until year three. I said _that_ was a bollocks exploination...

“ _Explanation_.”

“What’s exploination?”

“Nothing. There’s _exploitation_ and that’s something different.”

“...ex _plan_ ation and there should be a better reason. Ms Thompson said I talk too much...”

“You do talk too much.”

“... and that I shouldn’t say bollocks.”

Mycroft sighs. “You shouldn’t say bollocks. It’s a vulgar expression.”

“The Freeman kids say bollocks all the time.”

“The Freemans are vulgar people.”

Sherlock frowns and switches position again, somehow without actually removing any of his jagged joints from Mycroft’s ribs. “Mr Freeman won’t let me play with Martin anymore.”

“Why? Do you talk too much over there too?”

“All I said was that Mrs Freeman spends a lot of time in the garden shed and you would think that the gardener wouldn’t need _that_ much help. Although, maybe he wasn’t a very good gardener, because after I told them that, Martin said that he got fired...”

“It’s late, Sherlock. Go to sleep.”

Sherlock giggles.

“Mycroft?”

“Yes?”

His voice is sing-song; “I am thinking of an animal, a mineral or a vegetable...”

“Human.”

More laughing. “No, I did human already today...”

“I am not playing that tedious game with you. Not at one in the morning. Goodnight, Sherlock.”

Sherlock rolls over. There are a blessed few minutes of quiet.

Then Mycroft feels his brother twitch with soundless mirth.  "For God’s sake, go to sleep!"

He remains silent but the bed shakes with his body's laughter.  Mycroft tries to ignore him, feels him still for a moment, then start up again; a bag of bones vibrating the mattress.  Scowling, he rolls over and props up on one arm, overlooking the mop of dark curls facing away from him.  "What the _hell_...?"

Sherlock whispers something; almost inaudible but for the tiny sob that accompanies the words and heaves them out into the stillness of the room.

“I don’t want to _go_.”

Mycroft peers at the pale face in the dimness, notes the shiny trails on the cheekbones, a bare shimmer in the moonlight from the window.  Sherlock hasn't cried since he was two... and then it was a loud, tantruming affair; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

“Go? You’re not going anywhere.”

“But my brain doesn’t work right either.” Sherlock’s face contorts in an obvious effort to keep his voice even and fails miserably.

“You know that isn’t true.”

“No I don’t! I think from the inside of it! And everybody else thinks there’s something wrong with me...”

“What on Earth gave you that impression?” Mycroft does something he can't ever remember doing... he slips his arms around his little brother and draws him back to his side. Sherlock sniffles and turns and buries his face into Mycroft’s t-shirt with uncharacteristic meekness, his deductive reasoning coming out in a rush of tearful babble that contains the words _teachers_ and _other kids_ and _different._ Mycroft lets him expel it all until it dwindles to a hitching sigh on _send me away too._

“They’re not going to send you away.”

“How do you know?”

 _Because I’ll never let it happen again,_ Mycroft thinks vehemently, knowing now the consequences of this choice, cursing that he didn’t see it before. Any of them could and _would_ do the same; would flee, would vanish. The rest of the world be damned. He smiles sadly against the top of Sherlock’s head. “Because _I._ Know. Everything.”

Occasionally, this phrasing actually still works and this is apparently one of those times. Sherlock seems to accept it and rubs his nose on Mycroft’s shoulder in a rather disgusting and surprisingly typical five-year-old way. He settles into the crook of his brother’s arm, making it plain that Mycroft is going to have to wait for snores before he’ll be able to move him. Mycroft silently chastises himself for his earlier wish for company, flexes his numbing fingertips and then begins to hatch a vague plan about ditching school the next day to show Sherlock how to build a perpetual motion machine.

When the weight on his shoulder gradually loosens and breathes rhythmically, Mycroft slips out from underneath, re-covering them with the duvet and rolling over into his own space.

“I’m going to ask Mum and Dad for a dog again tomorrow,” Sherlock informs him sleepily.

Mycroft chuckles. “Well-played, little brother.”

 

***

 

“So...” Mycroft slides the portfolio across the table to John. “What should we tell Sherlock?”

John swallows. “She’s in witness protection.”

The café bustles around them with muted conversation and the soft _chink_ of dishes.

Mycroft smiles. “Ah. Yet, a moment ago, you said he doesn’t feel things.”

“ _...that way.”_ John corrects him. Mycroft is right, he thinks. _Never see again_ is one thing... _dead_ is quite another. John’s seen that scenario already and he doesn’t think he can take the relentless mourning of the violin again. He picks up the folder. “It was strange...” he begins.

The elder Holmes listens impassively.

“I don’t think it was solely a _salute_ , as you put it, intellectual or otherwise. And it wasn’t a typical attraction. I’m sure he must have noticed she was beautiful, but...“

“Beauty is a construct based entirely on childhood impressions, influences and role models,” Mycroft intones academically.

“...he was just _drawn_ to her somehow. I don’t know why. I don’t even think he knows why.”

“He doesn’t. I do,” he says, and John notes that the matter-of-fact quality in his voice has been replaced with something else. “She reminded him of someone he’s forgotten. Someone who... used to help him understand things. And understand himself.” Mycroft then gives John an odd once-over look that John can’t even begin to decipher and somehow makes him feel naked, but it’s gone in an instant. He continues, half into his coffee cup, “In some ways, losing Miss Adler may call to mind his first broken heart.”

“Oh... really?”

“In some ways,” Mycroft scowls, more to himself than John. “Not others.”

John waits for more—he’d pay handsomely for this story—but Mycroft obviously isn’t going to share. The muscles of his jaw twitch slightly, like he has a stone in his mouth, and John wonders if his tooth is acting up again. They both drain their coffee cups.

“Oh,” Mycroft adds, gathering up his briefcase, “he’s going to want the phone.”

“The phone?”

“The phone.” He nods toward the plastic sleeve, sighing and rolling his eyes. “Don’t ask; it’s just _a thing_. You’ll see.”

“But isn’t this—?“

“Government property. Yes, I am going to catch hell for it. Please act reluctant when you give it to him; he loves being able to think he’s pulled a fast one on me.”

The entire visit... in fact, John’s entire relationship with Mycroft Holmes... comes into focus and John laughs out loud.

“Something amuses you?”

“ _Caring is not an advantage_ ,” John quotes, chuckling, thinking of his first creepy encounter with the shadowy civil servant, and every clandestine meeting of theirs since. _I should have taken the money,_ John thinks. _I do exactly what he’d asked of me anyway._ But it’s suddenly so obvious why; John can’t believe he’s ever questioned Mycroft’s intentions. He imagines what a child-Sherlock... dear God, a _teenage_ -Sherlock... must have been like and wonders how it’s possible Mycroft has any hair left at all. John’s mind drifts to the morning after the Baker Street explosion and the way his heart had elevator-dropped forty flights while he had run up the one to the flat, in the painful slow-motion that dread causes. But who had been already sitting there, in John’s debris-covered chair? The big brother, of course, conveniently come-by on some errand. In his mind’s eye, John remembers Mycroft’s face in the light from the boarded-up windows and now sees the irritated ennui masking immense relief. And now here’s the master puppeteer again... worrying after his younger brother’s emotional health as much as the physical.

“Imagine that. A Holmes _and_ a human.”

Mycroft gets up. “Hardly. Though, of all of us, I would say that Sherlock—“

“I wasn’t talking about Sherlock.”

A rare smile briefly cracks and Mycroft hides it behind a napkin. “Take that _back,”_ he orders John, in mock-indignation.

It’s still raining and Mycroft pauses before the door to open his umbrella, giving John a disparaging look and muttering something about superstitious-black-cat-hogwash when John reminds him that it is bad luck to do so indoors. It is only after Mycroft’s phone rings and John takes off towards 221B that the strangeness of Mycroft’s wording occurs to him; that he had said _all of us_ , rather than just _both._

 _He probably included their parents,_ John muses. _They’ve_ got _to be a couple of odd ducks too._

 

***

 

The wind keeps shifting, but at the moment, it blows from the north and Mycroft suppresses a shiver against the chill of it. He and Sherlock stand on the tarmac in silence. Sherlock is waiting for the car and the fulfillment of the request that Mycroft hadn’t had the lack-of-heart to refuse. Mycroft is waiting for this day to be over.

It already feels as if it has been stretched out for such a long time.

The agent, a presence for whose benefit Mycroft isn’t sure, seems mildly amused at their lack of conversation. They ignore him. It isn’t awkward silence, nor is it comfortable. It’s just what they do and they’ve had years to perfect it.

Of course neither Sherlock nor the agent... nor most of the somnambulant telly-adhered populace, for that matter... knows what’s about to happen. Mycroft knows that, in a matter of mere minutes no less, the wind will shift again and all will be well. Oh, the Powers-That-Be will find out, and Mycroft will catch hell for it of course, but as far as anyone else is concerned, the blame will be pinned on a radical group that has it coming anyway. Mycroft sleeps easy most nights. He would rather be feared than loved, but his first choice is always to go completely unnoticed; pulling strings and cables and wires, putting the message in someone else’s mouth. This particular plan is extraordinary, but Mycroft is one who calculates every move and is always one step ahead.

_I’ll never let it happen again._

Still. It doesn’t stop the doubt from scratching at the door. One of these days, the damage will be too great for even extraordinary acts of reparation. He tells himself that the appropriately solemn, if unaffectionate, front that he is projecting is a ruse for the benefit any eyes that may be watching them. But the truth, Mycroft knows, is that the emotion behind it is too terribly easy to conjure. This deeper part of him imagines the day that he will truly bid farewell to his baby brother; like the matching bookend to the dark chapter of their childhood.

He watches the wind whip Sherlock’s curly hair, thinking of the other bookend’s many likenesses that, as the subdued middle child, Mycroft had somehow managed to evade. He wonders why Sherlock has never asked... why the boy who later became so engrossed in solving mysteries would fail to notice that something so important was missing from their lives. True; he had been quite young when it had all happened, but Sherlock could never be considered an average child with an average memory. And true; as a topic of conversation, it quickly became boarded-up and papered-over – _Danger Keep Out –_ but Sherlock had also never been one to forgo a good poke at a bees-nest either.

On the other hand, Mycroft muses, pain and guilt make for much stronger deterrents than plywood and crime tape. Perhaps, after giving the silent, raw wound of their household such a wide berth for so long, one so young as Sherlock would have forgotten the details and chalked the dim memory up to the face of a cousin or a neighbor... or no one at all. An anomaly in the dungeons of his mind palace. _Here there be dragons._

 _Our poor parents_ , he thinks. _Three children; all of them killers. One with a gun. One with a pen. And one..._

“You will look out for her?”

Mycroft snaps his eyes to the ones that are suddenly staring at him.

“And John? And Mary, of course,” Sherlock continues.

“So it’s a _her_?” He marvels at his brother’s shift in priorities and then processes this and comes to the conclusion that it is really John’s shift that Sherlock is dutifully adopting. John would probably be shocked to think he’s had such an impact, but Mycroft knows better. The experiment with the invalided army doctor had worked out far better than Mycroft ever could have hoped for when he had orchestrated Mike Stamford into the park that day.

Sherlock glances back out over the still-empty road. “They haven’t said so yet, but they’ve had a scan. Looks like a girl.”

“Ah.”

The intense gaze returns to him. “You _will—“_

“Yes, of course.”

And Mycroft sees it; the flicker of desolation in Sherlock’s face. _I don’t want to go._ He reminds himself again that, from Sherlock’s perspective, this is their last conversation... and yet, here they stiffly stand, even their eyes barely making contact, until now. Other than out of necessity to prevent drownings, scaldings and falls, Mycroft can count the number of times he’s offered his arms to Sherlock on one finger. And he’s pretty certain of which finger he’d be offered if he attempted to remedy this now.

Still. Perhaps he should try to impart something akin to brotherly compassion.

“Try not to aggravate your interpreter. At least not until you’ve got a working grasp of the local dialect.”

Sherlock smirks. “Try not to start a war before I get settled. You know what it does for border-crossings.”

They shake hands.

 _I meant what I said on the porch,_ Mycroft thinks, but swallows the words. Then a pale and scrawny child, made up of raw energy and sharp angles, elbows him playfully in the ribs, runs and laughs, peers at him from blanket forts and tree-houses. _For God’s sake, say it now,_ he tells himself. _When this truly happens, there won’t be the chance._

But he pauses just a fraction too long before replying and Sherlock fills in the silence. “There’s John now.” He nods towards the approaching car and steps forward.

Mycroft lets him go.

 

 

***


	2. Your Loss.

Sherlock lies, staring at the ceiling, and marvels at an ant that crosses the roof of his tree-house.

The fifteen-year-old that sits across from him shares his pale eyes and dark curls.  For most of the time he has known her, she has been a bag of bones too, as their mother likes to put it, but that has changed in the last year, just as Mycroft is now starting to. Sherlock is learning that people change and wonders if it will happen to him.

“Fur or feathers?”

“Neither.” Sherlock giggles.

“Hair, then?” When he nods, she reminds him, “You can’t do human again. You’ve already done human today.”

“It’s not. And that counts. You now have _twelve_ questions left.”

“Two legs or four?”

“Four.”

"Does it live in a barn?"

"Yes. But it prefers to be outside.”

“Well, who wouldn’t?” She looks up; sees the car approaching the house. “Sherlock, I need to talk to you.”

“You didn’t—“

“It’s a donkey.” At her quick and correct conclusion, Sherlock feels like pouting; she and Mycroft always do this to him... they play along as equals until tiring of the game and then make it plain that they are always one step ahead of him.

And they distract him and it works. He hates that it works. “Do you know what a policeman does?”

Sherlock scans through his archives. For a long time, the purpose of a policeman has been to drive a car with flashing lights and associated sound-effects, but this definition is beginning to seem frivolous. “Ms Thompson says they find you when you’re lost.”

“That’s right. If you ever get lost, you should look for a policeman to help you. Do you know what else they do?”

Sherlock looks toward the house, where he can see Mycroft in the window, talking to the officers. “Are they looking for us? We should go and tell them we’re not lost; we’re just in the tree-house.”

This provokes a sad smile. “We will in a minute. You had things you wanted to ask me.”

Oh, right. That reminds him. “Did you kill that man?”

“Do you think I did?”

Sherlock considers it. “No. I think it was an accident.” But then, not knowing why, he adds, “You could have if you wanted to.”

“Does that frighten you?”

“No,” he lies. Then he says, truthfully, “If you did, I think you would have had a good reason.”

“Yes. I would have.”

“Because he was a bad man?”

“He was going to do bad things.”

“Does that make it alright?”

The girl laughs suddenly, a quick, hard sound without a smile and mutters something that Sherlock doesn’t understand about _mouths_ and _babes_. She turns her gaze back to him and says gently, “If the ends justify the means. By the time you understand that, you’ll be old enough to decide for yourself.”

Sherlock scowls. “Everybody’s always saying things like that. Like Ms. Thompson and the solar system. I want to understand now. I want to know _now_.” He peers at his companion, trying to see beneath her skin. She looks like a girl. Just a girl. “Martin and his sister are afraid of you.”

“I know.”

“Mycroft is afraid of you.” He doesn’t know why he says this. It’s not something Mycroft has ever said – not that he tells his baby brother secrets anyway – and it’s not something that’s ever even occurred to Sherlock until this moment. But there it is; as true as the blue sky and it falls from his mouth like a stone.

“Yes. Are you?”

“Do you really see the future?”

“What do you think?”

Another thing they all often do... answer questions with questions. Sherlock doesn’t know how to reply now. As he often does at this still-tender age, he tries to fill in from another source. “Mycroft says that’s all rubbish. He says you’re just smarter than everybody else. You can just figure things out better. But knowing some things drives you mad.”

A real laugh this time. “Mycroft is a very clever boy. And so are you.”

She looks over toward the house. A cloud passes over her eyes. By this, and by the tone of her voice, he knows he must listen carefully. “Little brother... things are going to happen today that you won’t understand for a long time. That’s okay. Just keep it all in your head and it will come together when it needs to. But there’s one _very_ important thing you need to know now and never forget.”

“What?”

“He acts the way he does because he cares.”

Sherlock, expecting the revelation of a pirate treasure location, or a potion for invisibility, or anything not- _boring_ , is thoroughly disappointed by this. “He _hates_ me.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth, Sherlock.”

“Then why does he—“

She tousles his hair. “Because that’s what brothers do. Okay, my turn. I am thinking of an animal, a mineral or a vegetable...”

“Animal,” he says with confidence. She always does an animal.

“Correct. Off you go, then.”

“Fur or feathers?”

“Feathers.”

“An owl.”

“No, don’t guess. Never guess. Gather the evidence first.”

“Does it live in a tree?”

“No.”

“Does it live in a barn?”

“It can.” She smiles. “It prefers to be outside.”

Sherlock grins. “Who wouldn’t?”

Suddenly, there are adult voices on the lawn.

Calling for them.

“We’ll have to finish this later,” his sister says.

 

***

 

The wind blows from no direction; it has gone completely still. It would be tempting to say that it has been knocked out of him, but it doesn’t actually feel like that. He must still be breathing after all; that is the only thing he can hear. In. Out. In. Out. He is muted under a bell jar. Seconds are stretched out. It happened just moments ago; they were walking together, talking—no, arguing—and neither of them had seen it coming.

It happened just moments ago and yet it has been such a long time.

Sherlock kneels on the ground in silence. The pavement is hard and the blood pools hotly around his knees but the only thing he can feel is the imprint on his head, the echo of the hand that had shoved him down and held him out of danger’s way. It stings him impossibly; it feels scorched like a brand. He reaches wet fingers up into his hair, irrationally expecting singed tufts to come out with this touch; expecting to find a burn in the shape of his brother’s palm on the top of his skull. Neither of them had seen it coming— _what were we arguing about?_ —no, perhaps Mycroft had. Only just.

 _He needn’t have pushed so hard_ , Sherlock thinks, _I wasn’t resisting._ He trusts Mycroft. Resents, certainly. Despises, at times. But trusts _always_. Immediately, without question.

Attendants come. John continues to bustle. And so does he; his arms and legs move; he helps, he gets up and runs. He follows. He stands and watches. He follows again. Sits. Flashing lights. Tires and streets, doorways and halls, running again, sitting again. Soundless people come and go. The entire world is under a glass dome.

His lips move; he speaks, when spoken to. Which is such an odd thing, in silence. _Myc... my brother... must have seen over my shoulder. We were arguing; I lost my temper; I... I knocked his phone out of his hand. I reached down to get it. Then he must have seen... he’s always one step ahead of me. I..._

_Sorry; then what happened, sir?_

_I don’t... I don’t know._

Sherlock is lost and the policemen have come.

Pieces of words and sentences surface and submerge like shipwreck victims. _Turf-war. Crossfire. Stray._ Or maybe he’s lip-reading; does he know how to lip-read? It seems like it would be a useful skill in his profession. _Just in the wrong. Place. Wrong._ Time is still wonky. The words are too slow and too fast and he doesn’t understand. The officer is talking nonsense, as they always do... what he’s suggesting is ludicrous, ridiculous, where the hell is Lestrade anyway? It’s impossible, it’s improbable, no... it’s _not_ possible; there’s got to be a _reason,_ for God’s sake. Stray bullets don’t hit with just-to-the-left-of-centre perfect precision; they just _don’t_. Sherlock needs Post-It notes and a large wall and a list of all of both of their enemies and time... enough time to...

_Understand?_

He blinks.

_Sir? There was no way you could have known._

_But my brother..._ He feels his mouth move, but there’s no air. No wind; nothing to carry the words. His answer is too faint or formless or breathless or the stupid cop just doesn’t get it and it’s frozen in the vacuum between them. _I was arguing with him. I lost..._

_Sit here. We’re going to speak with your friend._

He waits. John was mostly there, but now not there. While he tries to remember where John went, he notices that if he felt anything, it could be described as cold. He vaguely wonders why he doesn’t have a blanket. Aren’t there blankets for this sort of thing?

Sherlock always trusts his eyes; trusts the evidence; trusts the facts. He had known the moment he had looked at the wound.

No, that’s not quite right. It was the moment before. It was the way John’s voice had sounded when he had yelled his name. John had known first, of course. John, the army doctor, who has seen too many violent deaths.

How odd to know... as he knows almost everything; with immediacy, with certainty. How odd to know, while still seeing Mycroft try to move, breathe; while feeling the sticky heat of his brother’s pulse beneath his hands.

Sherlock stares down at his fingers. Cleaned now, but with traces, of course. He doesn’t remember cleaning them. And then he wonders why he can still smell it so strongly; thick and iron-sharp. And then he remembers his hair.

How odd to know... while watching his eyes, while recognizing his brother still in them. Hope is a thing with feathers and Sherlock remembers his own, perched in the corners of his vision, tiny black tendrils eating their way inwards, blotting out the sun.

How odd to _know_... while still hearing Mycroft try to speak. Sherlock takes the two fragile words and packs them away carefully; they are too much and too little and he doesn’t trust himself to handle them yet.

For some reason, he remembers there’s something he’d always wanted to ask Mycroft, except he hadn’t known it until now. _It will come together when it needs to._ Something that his child-self had known enough to tip-toe around; to leave untouched until someday. An imaginary room that he had never tried to open. He would talk to Mycroft someday. There would always be time for that someday.

Something heavy and warm is draped gently across his shoulders.

A voice. “John.” It’s his own voice; dull and flat. Wind on his face. How can there be wind; aren’t they inside? An open door; another group of people whisk by, another gurney, another hurry. The air starting to move again, and with it, sound.

“Sherlock.” John takes a knee in front of where he sits. Sherlock sees him with immediacy; with certainty. Blood on his clothing, in the creases of his hands. A salty tide-line beneath the one eye that he hadn’t wiped as carefully as the other, even though his gaze is firm and his voice is steady. John, the army doctor, who’s seen a bit of trouble. John, who is so good at this sort of thing; Sherlock wishes he was half as good at _anything_ as John is at this. John, his best friend, who calmly says his name again and then that he is sorry, so sorry. “They tried everything but he was already...”

“I know.” Of course he does.

He’s known for such a long time.

 

***

 

John drives and Sherlock sits mostly in silence.

 _Mostly_ in silence, however, is chatty for Sherlock. Occasionally, he pipes up with a fun fact about some of the scenery they pass by. Or a detail about the service arrangements, a prediction about an upcoming familial encounter. An anecdote about Uncle Rudy.

He answers John’s questions. He even talks about Mycroft: kindly, but not overly so. And in the past tense, except for the few times that he appears to slip up, then correct himself: _Mycroft doesn’t... sorry, I meant didn’t of course..._ didn’t _enjoy family gatherings._

It wasn’t that long ago, after all.

Sherlock is behaving normally. Not just normally. A combination of normally and normally-for-him, which are two things that John had thought mutually exclusive.

For the thousandth time, John considers that perhaps Mycroft has faked everything, for one silly covert-government-operative reason or another, and Sherlock is delivering his normal human grief on a stage for John’s benefit. He replays the incident in his mind, reminding himself that he had seen the entire thing from beginning to end. He had been walking with them, playing referee, as usual. He had heard the shots and instinctively hit the sidewalk, before helping to drag the body beside him to cover. He called EMS and then directed Sherlock’s hands while his own had worked in furiously futile ministrations, before watching the life leave Mycroft’s eyes. He had followed the body. He had been present, as an assisting doctor, to the ER staff attempting resuscitation and listened as they finally called the time-of. He had returned to the hallway to tell Sherlock, and found the high-functioning sociopath sitting on the edge of a chair and presenting a very realistic portrayal of normal human shock.

Even this probably wouldn’t erase all doubt, but for the one thing John knows with certainty. Mycroft would never attempt to fake his death; not in the wake of his little brother’s success in the same endeavor. How gauche that would be.

And then, of course, there’s the wall in Baker Street.

Perhaps _normal human grief_ is wishful thinking. It’s far too early yet and John refuses to worry—so far, it’s only been three Post-Its anyway—but of course it isn’t going to end well. Although John tries to give it a respectful distance, 221B’s current case is a silent raw wound that grows wider with every newspaper and television report that dare to use the terms _unfortunate coincidence._ Sherlock only gave his response out loud once; softly, behind his interlaced fingers and probably not intended for John’s ears at all. But John knows him too well to not hear it constantly: in every note wrenched from the violin, in every furrow and blink; it’s damn-near the level of screaming; it’s full of sound and fury and drenched in doubt: _There’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason._

_There has to be. Because if there isn’t..._

John suddenly notices that Sherlock is prattling on about something that he’s missed. _So this is what it’s like._ “Sorry?”

“I nearly burned that thing down when I was seven,” Sherlock points to a barn in the distance. “I was trying to test a model flyer with oscillating aerofoils that I’d built. It oscillated itself right into the haystacks. Mycroft apparently knew of my intentions... he alerted the owner to have the hose ready.”

“Resourceful, as always.”

“And I nearly downed in that culvert when I was twelve. I wanted to see if I could swim the length of it in the spring thaw. Luckily, someone had seen fit to install a grappling line.”

“Hmm. I wonder who? My, my... you are reminiscent today.”

“I’m practicing. For the damn speech.” Sherlock then says, with a very _normal_ amount of solemn wistfulness; “He was always there for me, you know? To catch me whenever I fell.”

It’s a touch too maudlin and John wants him to know that he’s not going to get away with it. “ _Oh_...” he deadpans slowly. “So... _that’s_ how you did it.”

His passenger tries to look wounded for a moment and then accepts that he’s not going to get any real sympathy for phony sentiment. “You know, John, there are only so many ways to jump off a building and survive. I’m happy to explain the rest to you if you’re quite finished being cross about the radio silence.”

“Not quite finished.”

“Oh, _honestly_.”

“It wasn’t funny!”

“It was necessary.” A pause. “And a bit funny.”

“How can you _still_ say that, given what you’re about to don a suit for?!”

Sherlock is quiet and John almost regrets this last comment until he hears the under-the-breath chuckle; “Mycroft thought it was funny too.”

“Don’t _ever_ do something like that again.”

“Of course not.” But John knows this has more to do with capability than sensitivity. Sherlock’s access to government resources for grandiose stunts is now woefully impaired. John has already warned him not to mention _that_ in the eulogy, even though Sherlock insists it’s a major point.

They return to watching the road, each in his own head. The spring sun beats down with annoying cheerfulness.

“But you’re okay?” John asks, after a while.

“Is there a choice in the matter?” his friend answers the question with a question.

John steers down a laneway. As they park and get out, Sherlock does the slight setting of his shoulders that precedes unpleasant activity. They walk toward the house. John tries to keep up the conversation.

“I thought your parents didn’t buy this place until recently. Didn’t you travel half the continent as a kid?”

“And then some. But they leased here. We often came back, especially in the spring. A few years ago they had the opportunity to buy and jumped on it.” Sherlock’s gaze turns inward for a moment and he pauses behind John. “There was something that always drew them back to this place.”

“Memories?”

“Yes.” Sherlock’s voice is suddenly quiet.

“Of the many near-misses survived by their youngest?” John stops walking and turns to look back, surprised to see that Sherlock has dropped to a crouch beside the lane-way. “Oi... hey.”

His eyes dart around and he murmurs to himself faintly, as he does when replaying a scene. The only words John catches are _hospital_ and _say goodbye_.

“What is it?”

He is looking up towards him, but not _at_ him; as if listening to someone else in John’s place. He has gone paler than usual – which is no small feat, John thinks – and his hand drifts unconsciously to the top of his head.

“Sherlock?!”

He blinks, refocusing on John. “It was here,” he murmurs, fingers resting in his hair. “I... I’d forgotten. I don’t... I don’t know how I could have forgotten. But I’m sure of it now... it was right _here_.”

“What?”

“Duck.” Sherlock says softly. “The last thing she said to me... was _duck_.”

 

***


	3. The Other One.

Selby lies. And lies and lies and marvels at how people— _ants, such little ants_ —listen so keenly to what they want to hear, rather than the truth.

She had learned, very young, that although she could figure the truth out better than anyone she knew, this often did nothing but frighten them... and herself. Eventually, the loss had been too great. So Selby lies whenever she has to and otherwise keeps to herself. It’s not a comfortable existence either, but she’s had years to perfect it.

She has come a long way and told a lot of lies to get here. It’s exhausting and she blesses the empty grounds, the rows of silent stones, the gently weeping trees.

The snow falls like music—or is it the other way around?—and Selby catches flakes of both on her face as she waits. She doesn’t want to interrupt; it took them both so long to come here and yet, here they are, just in the same. Place. Same. _Time is wonky_ , Selby laughs to herself. Stretched out in some parts, squeezed in others; wibbling and wobbling and overlapping. _Look at the way he tilts his chin; it’s the same pose, it hasn’t changed a bit._

“Isn’t it freaky that he never cries?” her brother whispers to her.

Not now, of course. That fragment is from the brief and long-ago phase in which saying things like “freaky” wasn’t yet beneath him.

“Of course he does.”

“I never hear him anymore.”

 _That’s because you’re often the reason,_ Selby had thought quietly.

“I think he must be a bit of a dullard. He can’t be like you and me.”

“You and _I_ ,” she had corrected automatically. “And nothing could be further from the truth, Mycroft.”

The falling snow muffles her footsteps and covers her path. Each print echoes around her ankles like glass breaking... but Selby, adrift in the howling world, has learned that the volume of her sensory input is not always proportional and notes with confidence that the figure standing at the grave doesn’t seem to notice her approach. He plays with his back almost fully turned to her, eyes closed and his face tranquil over the instrument.

“Well, he’s certainly not shedding any tears now.” This Mycroft is older, more recent, a version with which she is less familiar. Still. The tilt to his chin hasn’t changed either. It’s all rather funny to her; these little boys, playing at being men. “I swear, this is pay-back for all the times I made fun of his practicing. _Nine months_ for him to make it back out here for the sake of _this_ phlegmatic performance.”

“You truly can’t hear it?” Selby cocks her head to the side as the placid player before her hits every note flawlessly, his limbs softly poised and his brow calm and composed. Confident.

And the violin keens like a lost child.

“This is as flippant as the damn eulogy. Look at him! That last canto was nothing short of _jaunty_.” Mycroft’s scoff is almost convincing.

She chuckles silently. In a moment, she knows, the song will finish, Sherlock will open his eyes and nod his respects to the stone. She will say his name and startle him—which is no small feat, Selby thinks; even as an infant he’d barely succumbed to this reflex—and then he will call out _Is someone there?_ and startle again as she emerges from the trees and he registers her face.

Selby doesn’t actually see the future but she sometimes she _knows_ it... or disjointed fragments of it anyway. _A savant has an uncanny ability to see and understand, to follow and predict certain patterns_ a doctor in Japan had once told her. _A psychic has mystical premonition. One of these things is real. The other isn’t._

 _Why the bloody hell do you think they’re not the same thing?_ Selby had retorted, disruptively, before promptly discharging herself again. _Ants. Such little ants._

But this isn’t premonition; it’s just inevitable: in a moment, Sherlock will startle and falter and almost-fumble the violin and ask her how she can be possible. And then, for the first time in two-and-a-half decades, Selby will stop running and hiding and _lying_ and tell someone the truth.

Because this prospect terrifies her, she stalls in the moment beneath the future and tries to continue to banter with the past.

He is now as old as he will ever become... and growing hazy, wibbly-wobbly. He gazes fondly at Sherlock and, since Mycroft Holmes would never lift the veil covering his affection or pride, this smile must be a trick of the light. Selby longs for the parts of time that will never over-lap. History melts like snow on her cheekbones.  

“Hardly worth it then?” she says.

“Hardly.” _Just a trick of the light._

“I am sorry, little brother.”

“As am I. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to ask you, but forgive me. And quickly, please, because I don't think you’ll be able to see me much longer... what with the mortal coil so shuffled and all. But there hasn’t been a day since that I didn’t regret my part in your committal—“

“Oh, _that._ ” She tries to keep him in view, but he’s starting to fade. She can barely make him out in the corners of her vision. “You did what you had to do. You can’t possibly think I held a grudge?”

“You might have warned me about the bullet. You knew about _him_ , didn’t you?”

“But not you. I didn’t see that he was with you.”

“Well, I guess we know who your favourite was,” he teases.

“Don’t be cross. You know it just doesn’t always work that easily.”

“Shame. Would have made the odds easier for me to calculate.”

He’s still teasing her, so she returns the favour. “Ah, yes. That would have been a difficult choice for someone accustomed to calculating every move. You didn’t just _react_ out of brotherly compassion, did you?”

He gasps in mock-indignation. His voice is growing fainter, taken up by the wind. “Outrageous. Take that _back_.”

“Apologies, Mycroft. You are the master of your fate.”

“I _learned_ from the master. Caring is not an advantage.”

“I guess that means you didn’t believe me?”

“Oh, sister-mine. Never guess. Gather the evidence.” 

 

...

 

John quietly climbs the stairs to Baker Street.  Quietly puts his key in the lock of the—oddly—closed door at the top of the landing.  Turns it and pushes it open.  Quietly.

"Watch your step," a voice tells him. Not Sherlock’s.

He trips over the books strewn about on the floor and crashes noisily into the shelf.  Looks up.

John hasn't seen Sherlock in almost a week.  He had promised to return to the Watson’s house in Kensington for Christmas dinner... promised that the important something he had to do was not for a case... and then all but disappeared.  The "but" was a series of his text responses:

_fine_

_all is well_

_no need to come to bkr st_

And then the call, half an hour ago, for Mary. 

"What was all that about?  Where is he?" John had asked.

"I'm not supposed to..."

He had given her the look.  The _still-basically-very-pissed-off_ look.

"Harrods.  He's at Harrods.  He wanted... advice."

This is unprecedented, on two accounts.  "On what?"

"Buying women's clothing."

Okay, on three. That had tipped the obvious need to come home... and John idly notices that, in his mind, he still calls it _home_... from curious to critical.  But despite the knowledge that Sherlock was not there at the moment, John had had a sense that he should employ stealth when entering.  Now that this ship has sailed, he steps into the sitting room and observes the occupant: standing with her back to him and clothed only in a towel as she stares out the window, the graceful figure of a woman. For a moment, John capitalizes this moniker in his mind, and then realizes that no; it’s not _Her_... they are similar in colouring, build and bearing, but this one is slightly taller. And not Janine, obviously. So, _another_ woman, insufficiently clothed, in Baker Street.

"Not again," he sighs.  Quietly.   To her; "Erm, excuse me Miss..."

She turns her head.  "Chickens."

John blinks.

"Little feathers in our hair."  She looks him over with penetrating eyes, which come to east on his head.  John suddenly realizes he's still coated in a good layer of January snow from the blustery walk from the Tube. 

He tilts his head and shakes out the flakes.  "It's turning out to be quite the storm out there."

Sherlock's guest nods out the window, which is open. "The best-laid plans of one Mr Holmes."

God, she must be freezing. This sojourn is beginning to border on surreal.  So no different than most visits to 221B, John thinks.  He says; "I don't think he controls the weather."

The woman smiles and fully turns, her towel shifting slightly.  As she strides toward the sofa, John can't help but look... he's appreciated beauty on three continents, after all... and tries to ignore the fact that she is, firstly, striking... and secondly, moving without the self-consciousness of most strangers-in-towels.  And yet, it occurs to him as she sits down that this is not the measured confidence of an attractive woman, but more like the grace of some wild creature that doesn't think it is being watched.

"So, where is he?" John asks.

At this, her face changes and she looks at him intensely.  "You _saw_ ," she says.  Pointedly; though John can't fathom why.

"I've not seen him in days.  I'm a little worried, to tell you the truth, and so I came over..."  He stops.  "And you are...?"

"A disruptive influence, I’ve been told."

 _Not helpful._ "If Sherlock's not here, I'll just..."

She blinks.  "Oh, him.  He's out getting some things. I didn’t have the right things.” Glancing down at her feet, she mutters to herself; “I hope the idea of running shoes occurs to him... there’s going to be _running_.” John tries to place her accent; it’s not American but it’s not exactly English either. He settles on _itinerant_ as she abruptly shifts seamlessly into another language that John can’t identify for her next sentence. Since this one was again directed at John, she pauses when he looks puzzled and when he doesn’t respond, she switches back again. “I tried to go myself, but it was so loud and nonsensical." 

“Ah.”

She leans forward over her knees and rubs her temples in a gesture that is somehow familiar.  The towel begins to slip; saved by her current posture but only just.  John reacts when she doesn't, sitting beside and catching it against the lovely white curve of her spine.  The invasion of her space doesn't appear to faze her at all but he feels suddenly compelled to chatter through this ridiculously awkward state of affairs.

"Look. It’s not my place to say and I don't know anything about your relationship but, believe me... it's probably best not to get too involved with him.  I mean... you seem like a nice person and may not be aware that _he_ is a world of trouble."

The pale blue eyes return to his and the intensity returns to them.  Not: _doesn't think it’s being watched,_ John corrects his earlier musing.  _Doesn't care._ Top of the food chain. 

"Not that he's a bad person.  Far from it; he’s nice... uh, nice-ish... it's just... well, it's really complicated. _He’s_ just really complicated. And now is a worse time than usual..."

Her brow furrows.

"You know what?  Forget I said anything. Not my business.  Not at all."  John's eyes dart over her and, out of necessity, he forces himself into a more clinical observation. Fortunately, he’s learned from the master. 

 _Miss_ , he had said, but now that he's up close, he can see she's older than they are by about a decade.  Short hair; dark shot-through with a few silver fragments, curly but recently cropped close to the skull, and not in a salon.  One stark-white lock, almost hidden, behind her right ear. She's slight but strong, and with a wiry thinness that has nothing to do with vanity.  Nails short and rough; slight tremble to the hands that John's presence isn't causing; it's pattern is dyskinesic and speaks of a long-term chemical influence.  _Prescriptive or self-inflicted?_ John wonders, and his gaze shifts to her bare arms.  Scarred, but not recently. And with a neat, medical methodology. Too clean for some of Sherlock’s “network” acquaintances.

John realizes that while she allows him to observe her, she's doing the same thing; scanning him, reading him, and he has the distinct sense that she's much better at it.  He realizes why her age had confounded him; her eyes are both much older and much younger than the rest of her is.  And then he realizes that this situation isn't what he'd thought at all; she isn't a part of Sherlock's plans; he's a part of hers.  

“Tinker, tailor, soldier...” She inspects John's left hand and pauses on his ring finger.  " _Ashes... ashes..._ " she murmurs softly; sing-song.  "No.  Not yet..." 

Despite the peculiarities, John's never been scrutinized in such a cool, measured, calculating way... and that's saying a lot.  So when he instinctively asks, "Is everything alright?" and his companion’s eyes brim unexpectedly, his degree of surprise at this is surpassed only by hers, evident in the suddenly anxious hands that fly to her face.

" _...we all fall down_ ," she completes in a whisper, emotion thickening her voice, and collapses into him as easily as if she’s known him since childhood.

"Oi... hey."  John slips his arms around her.  "It's okay."

Silent but shaking; a bag of bones. John hears the scrape of lashes beneath his ear, feels the hot tears on his neck. _Surreal._ He holds her quietly. It’s not comfortable, nor is it awkward. It’s just what he has to do and John, the Heart of the amateur detectives club, is good at this sort of thing. After about a minute, though, it occurs to him that perhaps he should introduce himself.  "I'm Sherlock's—“

She leans back from his shoulder and, nodding, looks into his soul as easily as John looks into the morning papers.  "Of course you are."  Wipes her eyes.  "What's your name?"

"John..."

It's spoken in a low rumble from the doorway.  John looks up.

"...which part of my texts wasn't clear?"  Sherlock huffs.  "I wouldn't have even sent them if it weren't for your bloody separation anxiety."

The woman finishes drying her eyes and stands, straightening her wrap and greeting him with a small smile that looks relieved. She moves as if she means to reach out to touch him, then thinks the better of it and keeps her distance. “I’m glad you’re back. I just realized a few minutes ago or I wouldn’t have let you go out there.”

It’s been snowing all day. Sherlock exchanges a brief look with John.   _Yes I know.  She's a nutter._

“Not the worst storm I’ve been in,” he mutters, dusting off his coat and kicking off his wet shoes.

“It just doesn’t work that easily,” she tells John. “There’s too much input and my timing is often off.” And then back to Sherlock; “Don’t be cross.”

He steps close to her and speaks quietly, but John hears anyway; “When I said you needed to stop wearing my clothes, I didn’t mean _immediately.”_

She reaches into one of the parcels in his hands and produces a pair of trainers. Then smiles as she sees what is underneath. She pulls the blue fabric out, holding it up above her head and peering up through it at the light, then touches it briefly to her cheek.  "The Freeman’s pond. You remembered.”

Sherlock nods and smiles in a manner that suggests he hasn't the faintest idea what she means and sweeps his arm helplessly between her and John.  His expression recalls John to a spring laneway and a cryptic fragment that Sherlock had quickly swept under the conversational rug.  "Well, John... I see you’ve met my..."

"Sister," John understands.

Of course she is.

"Sherri—“ Sherlock begins again and when she cuts him off with a rebuking _Billy_ under her breath, he corrects himself; "Selby.  She goes by Selby now."

John almost chuckles.  "Did none of you go by your first names?"

“Oh, you should see the whole of our birth certificates,” Sherlock sighs. “I honestly don’t know what the hell they were thinking.”

“Frank and Will did most of the bowling. Thomas was only in for two innings and took no wickets.” Selby cocks her head pointedly at Sherlock. “Turned out awfully fitting, don’t you think?”

“If you say so,” Sherlock mollifies with a shrug. He thrusts the rest of the parcels into her arms and reaches into his pocket, producing a small bottle that rattles, and tries to press it into her hand.

She looks away and mutters something in what John thinks might be Hindi.

“Selby, please.”  Sherlock's voice is strained.

“No.” Her voice suddenly has an iron edge. “We had this discussion. You’re a detective, not a doctor.” She lobs the bottle deftly at John, who catches it in a near-fumble. “Ask him what he thinks.” And then she’s gone, new clothes in arms, off up the stairs to John’s old room.

John turns his mind sharply away from the sway of the towel and the legs beneath it with a fresh and guilty fervor. “So she...?”

“Winterfield. Well, only very briefly. Disappeared when I was barely five.”

“Did you...?”

“No, it was never spoken of. They probably didn’t intend for that to remain the case forever, but I guess my parents just couldn’t bear it and Mycroft... well, you know. The master of covert ops started young. There were circumstances... around her...”

John waits, and when it doesn’t come, he prompts, “Around...?”

“It doesn’t matter. I knew nothing until eight days ago. Bits and pieces are coming back to me now, but I don’t really remember her.”

Sherlock crumples into his chair and rests elbows on knees, face on hands. God knows, John’s seen his friend sleepless before, but this is a new brand of haggard. He leaves the sofa and sits across from him in his old chair, reading the label on the bottle. “This is a strong dosage. It’s not something that anyone should abruptly start taking.”

“It’s not something that anyone should abruptly _stop_ taking either.”

John looks toward the stairwell and lowers his voice. “Jesus. A female _you..._ with a diagnosis.”

Sherlock rubs his eyes. “Hardly. She’s cleverer than me. And jury’s still out on diagnosis. Though I’d wager her chart in this country was probably closed in the mid-eighties after they wrote _deceased_ in it.”

Oh, this is priceless. John bites into his lower lip, muffling his reaction. “Hmm.”

His friend peers at John desperately through his fingers and speaks in a hush. “John... I don’t know what to do. Half the time, she doesn’t talk, and the other half, I can’t make sense of _anything_ that comes out of her mouth. She says she never self-medicates; I don’t _think_ she’s using, but you’ve heard her talk: how can one tell? She oscillates from lethargic to frantic on a moment’s notice; she flipped though every book in my collection last night, jabbering on about eyeballs and black eagles. Look at the flat; it’s a disaster!”

“Mm-hmm.” His teeth sink in a little deeper. _Do not laugh_ , John tells himself sternly. _Not appropriate right now. Not good_.

“And she barely sleeps, she won’t eat and she does _not_ do well around people...” Sherlock trails off and John can almost hear the _ping_ as the penny drops.

“It must be awful.”

“Oh, _shut-up_.”

“Really. Can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

“Are you enjoying this?!”

He leans forward and sets the pills on the hearth beside his chair. “Not as much as deserve to. Sherlock, you look terrible. Does anyone... do your parents... know she’s here?” At the weary shaking of the dark head, John levels his hands out between them in what he hopes is a calming gesture. “Look. Maybe this isn’t a puzzle you can solve by yourself.”

“I can’t bring her _there_ yet! Not now, not since...”

“Other help, then.”

“I just told you that she doesn’t do well with other people.”

“She seemed fine with me.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, as if John is missing a ridiculously simple point. “You’re not _other people.”_

“Oh. Thanks?”

“I just...” He pauses, grasping for the words like flexing an unused muscle. “I _need_ to understand. I need her _here_ if I’m going to understand. I can’t help her if I can’t figure her out, and John...” he spreads his arms weakly, “...if not _me_ , who is going to?”

John nods sympathetically. And then sees an opportunity. “With this on your plate now, perhaps you could maybe... erm... clear the wall, then?”

They both glance toward the mess of Post-Its, maps, lists and other paraphernalia stuck to the wallpaper above the sofa. John has begun to loathe this case... what had started as the hunt for Mycroft’s imaginary assassin had uncovered a web of fevered musings that John thinks are half nutter-conspiracy-theory and half eerily-coincidental. Most are terrorism incidents or gang warfare, some are strange crimes; all are unsolved... well, except one, but that was the one that Sherlock had refused to acknowledge until very recently. Neither of them can see the entirety of the connections but Sherlock insists they must be there and John is afraid that, if he’s right, he is poking a bigger bees-nest than he is used to dealing with.

And that’s saying a lot.

His friend waves a hand at it. “Actually, she says this is the reason she’s found me now. To help me solve it.”

“Really? No offense, but...”

“I know. But...” he rubs his eyes again, “...from what I’ve been able to piece together in the last week, there’s often a kind of sense to what she says. I just don’t always see the pattern right away; next to her, I feel... like a goldfish. I’ve been trying to steer her away from it, but now and then she says something that clicks. It can’t hurt to try to work together.” Sherlock tents his fingers and scowls. “Although, _how_ I’m supposed to just accept the fact that she can be gone that long and then waltz back into my—“

It’s really too much. John doesn’t hide the smirk in time.

“Not funny, John.”

“It’s a _bit_ funny.”

“What the hell would satisfy you, hmm? How many times have I—“

“ _Presumed,”_ Selby tosses at them as she comes down the stairs, tunic and leggings and trainers and all. “Said the chart in this country.”

She looks lovely in the colour Sherlock’s chosen, setting off the eyes that smile her thanks to him. She looks happy in it too, John thinks, but now that he lives with one of each, he knows that this is less like the way that women feel happy in their clothes and more like the way that little girls do. “Like the way the sky looked in the pond that day,” she sighs affectionately at her brother, and for a moment, John thinks she’s actually going to hold out the hem of the tunic and twirl around.

“The sky isn’t really blue, actually...” Sherlock grumbles, but with a puzzled expression that says he doesn’t know why he answers this way, and wishes he can remember what she does.

“True. But we have to call it something, don’t we?” She chuckles. “John, you’ll never believe this, but his first favourite toy was a little prism-glass that I’d knicked from school. Used to wave it around and watch the artefacts it made on the ceiling. Drove our parents mad.”

John tosses a fond glance at the younger man to find the expression softening into reminiscence. “It had a little crack in it,” Sherlock murmurs, more to himself than either of them.

“Made the loveliest pattern,” Selby agrees. “Whatever happened to it?”

There’s something in her voice... or maybe just her eyes?... that asks the question a bit _too_ innocently, too nonchalantly, John thinks.

His friend doesn’t seem to notice, droning on, hypnotically, “I’d kept it for years. But then it broke. One day, my friend Vic and I were walking and I... It fell. Off the garden wall.” He swallows in a way that suggests the day in question was memorable for other reasons. Whatever these are, Sherlock isn’t sharing, however. After a moment, he continues. “I remember being surprised at how thoroughly it shattered. It must have been the crack that was already in it... or the height of the fall, or both, because it just _shattered_ —“

“—like a champagne glass?” she completes, in an off-handed tone.

Sherlock’s head snaps up toward her and their eyes lock like foils. For reasons John can’t even begin to fathom, the countenance that had been bordering on weary is suddenly bordering anger. Or perhaps terror. Sometimes, with Sherlock, it’s hard to tell.

Selby shrugs the moment off. “You’re not going to solve it all by yourself, you know,” she tells him matter-of-factly.

Her brother blinks. “ _What?!_ ”

“Your case.” Her tone has abruptly shifted again. She turns in the middle of the room, faces the Post-It wall, and reaches out a slender arm for the Sharpie on the desk. “May I?”

Sherlock leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. “Be my guest.”

Selby steps up on the sofa and begins to carefully consider all the paraphernalia on the wall. She unearths one that says _Bill 101_ from beneath others and lays it back on the top layer.

“ _Draconian_ _bollocks_ ,” Sherlock mutters heatedly. The former term has been thrown around a lot lately... John doesn’t think he’s ever heard Sherlock stoop to use the latter.

“The anti-terrorism thing?” John pipes up. “I thought that was voted down.”

Selby nods. “It _was_. For now.” On the one marked _Project Prince_ , she scratches out Sherlock’s handwritten _Royals?_ and writes _Old Nick_ instead. “Il fine giustifica...”

“...i mezzi,” her brother completes. _Italian_ , John identifies, and feels like he’s heard it before and should be able to translate.

She then plucks off the one with Mycroft’s name from Edmonton Green and casts a sidelong glance back at her brother. “In his case, the universe was just lazy.”

“I know,” Sherlock says, with a tired sigh. “I’ve been meaning to take it off the victims list and put it with the _Project_ one on Whitehall. Just haven’t gotten around to it.”

Selby ponders this a moment and then folds the note, slipping it into her pocket. “No. No... I don’t think so.” She speaks slowly, thoughtfully. “I don’t think you really do, either...”

His retort has a harsh edge to it; “Why not; he always said that caring wasn’t—“

“ _Evidence_ ,” she admonishes, as if he’s missing a ridiculously simple point. “Besides,” she adds, as she circles several of the dates; more recent than Mycroft’s death. “Mycroft may or may not have planted the seed, but the real question is: who’s been watering it?” She puts up a fresh note in Whitehall and writes something.

John squints. It says _Navigator._ Whatever that means.

The world’s-only-consulting-detective, who has been watching in repose and through half-closed lids, gradually shifts forward in his chair and, despite his obvious fatigue, begins to glow like a coal under breath. His sister gracefully moves, writes and circles; one here, two there and Sherlock doesn’t seem to notice that he starts to murmur faintly along with her steps. He stands, brow furrowed, and joins her.

John doesn’t understand what it all means but still watches them orbit each other with fascination. They finish each other’s sentences with a fluid ease and occasionally appear to share something without speaking at all. It’s not dissimilar to the way observing Sherlock and Mycroft together had been. _Savantism isn’t quite right_ , he ponders _. Rogue-gods like children... no wonder they look at most people like we’re insects._ But this pairing is not entirely the same as the brothers, either. Selby corrects and directs him tenderly and Sherlock’s admiration is unguarded on his face as he stretches himself to keep up.

He doesn’t remember, but he _knows_ he adored her, John thinks.

“Do you see now?” Selby asks gently.

“Y...yes.” The furrow remains. “But I still don’t know what to _do_...”

She produces Mycroft’s name again and places it back up in the centre, after taking a moment to draw something on it. An eye.

“Did you miss me?” she grins.

Sherlock’s smile breaks slowly and like the dawn. “You. Are absolutely. Brilliant.”

The wild creature folds her arms, looking over the mess of papers and strings with a wistful gaze. “My little brother... saving the world,” she sighs. “Run, you clever boy.”

He blinks as he speaks next, as if he’s surprised at himself for the words falling from his mouth; “Which of us did y—?“

She doesn’t let him finish. “Both.”

Then Selby trembles, and Sherlock instinctively steps closer to her, face drawing in concern, before realizing that a blast of wind has blown through the still-open window. “John, the snow’s coming in; can you—“

“That’s not snow,” she whispers.

As John reaches for the latch, another gust catches in his throat with an acrid bite to it. He looks at the flakes gathering on the sill, and looks back at Sherlock. They smell it at the same time and hear it too: the distant wail of sirens. Sherlock darts to the window and places his hand on the sill; then pulls it back. The snow melts in his handprint. The ash, like little grey feathers, doesn’t.

Selby writes something on a new paper in her hand, eyes locked with her brother. “Don’t be cross.”

There is a clattering on the stairs before Mrs Hudson bursts into the room. “Sherlock! Are you not watching the news?!”

“What is it?” John asks, with dread.

Sherlock reads the note in his sister’s hand and looks pale.

“Chickens,” Selby sighs. “Coming home to roost.”

 

***

 

Sherlock lies, staring up at the sky and marvels at its array of early evening colours; golds, pinks and greens; retreating thunderheads in the distance. The wind blows softly over the Downs. They had arrived during a storm but it has now passed, freshening the landscape.

From the cottage come faint sounds of laughter; a toddler shrieking with mirth; the muted conversation of the family that’s growing up around him. Sherlock smiles and presses his head back into his grass-pillowed hands. It isn’t London, but there’s a place and a time for everything and right now he welcomes the peacefulness. It’s been months but he still has the feeling, often at the moment of waking, that his heart rate hasn’t quite yet slowed to normal.

 _Run,_ Selby had told him, barely above a whisper in their shared, crouched darkness, and he had followed; younger and taller and still barely able to keep up to her. The very best cases, Sherlock knows, always have running. The very best cases always need webs tied with nimble fingers and nets thrown widely around the unsuspecting prey. The very best cases have broken entries and scaled walls and leapt rooftops... and _running_ , the blood pounding in your veins, _just the two of us against the rest of the world._ They had ducked and climbed and cast their nets and run... the way that only people with ghosts in their wake can run.

John had fretted. More than usual.

_That’s never going to work. This isn’t a Bond film, you giant git; they don’t reveal their super-villian plans and then expect you to die. They just expect you to die._

_John, it’s the only way. And it’s going to work. The frailty of genius, remember?_

_You’re gonna die. Like, for real, this time._

In the end, he had been alone. And—although he’ll never admit this to John—slightly terrified of the four muzzles trained on him and the distinct possibility that the good doctor was right.

Sherlock rolls his head on his hands and casts a sidelong glance at the newspaper on the lawn beside him, chuckling over the headlines. Words. Such small, simple and often careless things; making changes with sweeping enormity. In his mind’s eye, he replays the events in question.

“I’m curious, Mr Holmes,” Murtagh had said, “what crime do you think you’ve solved here? I’ve fired no weapon. I’ve signed no orders. I’m a consultant, my dear boy, a doddering academic. I just help the Powers That Be navigate sensitive matters, if you will.” He had chuckled then, as if at some private little joke. “Oh, I’ve given a nudge here and there, but even without my party’s involvement, do you not think the citizens of this country would have eventually come to the same conclusion? The people want law and order. The people want national security. And now, the people are about to make their own decision.”

“I think _the people_ would choose differently, if they knew what the price of that security has been.”

“Nonsense. They were paying that price anyway. Our brand of chaos has simply been more surgical. And more optimally televised.”

“Do you know what the definition of a terrorist is? Someone who terrifies.”

“Sometimes the ends...”

Sherlock had rolled his eyes. “ _Oh, boring_. What is it with you government types anyway?”

And Murtagh had laughed again. “I know, I know. Well, you know what they say about absolute power too. In that vein, let me just add, Sherlock... your brother was a _great_ man...”

He’d felt the blood burn in his heart.

“...and, in the end... just in the wrong place at the wrong time. To think that I’d toyed with the idea of orchestrating something to repay you in kind and then never had to go through with it. The universe certainly is a funny place, isn’t it?”

 _Ignore it_ , he’d thought viciously, _Focus._ His eyes had darted around, checking his cues, checking their positions. Were they in view? Could he risk moving a bit to be sure? The clicks of the four secret service agents cocking four high-powered rifles told him no.

He had cleared his throat with a tremble in his raised arms that hadn’t entirely been an act. “If I don’t have any concrete proof... and you have eyes and ears and fists in any office that I can try to solicit assistance from... then I’m really no threat to you,” he had tried to reason with them, “and you _really_ don’t have to kill me, do you?”

“Sorry. You’re right, of course. But you are a bit of a celebrity and likely to garner some tabloid musings with your theories. And that can be so bothersome.”

“My _murder_ will be...”

“Solved by your friends in Scotland Yard? By your little amateur detective’s club? Perhaps you’ve failed to observe: there is no CCTV here. And you are quite familiar with our methods. You grew up in the same household as the very _master_ of covert operations. No, my dear sir. It would take Sherlock Holmes to find your body, and... well, I rest my case. Although, I’m sure speculations about your _disappearance_ will no doubt entertain people for months to come. Remember? You have that effect on the public.”

And Sherlock had allowed himself to smile. _It’s going to work._ He had risked turning around slowly, carefully, to face them... mostly to be seen in a better angle.

Mostly. But, in truth, he had also really wanted to watch the penny drop.

“Oh, yes,” he had agreed, “that’s the thing about television; _so_ addictive. The vapid binge-watching masses. The somnambulant telly-adhered populace that needs to be told how to vote.”

The agents stiffen but no order is given to fire.

Murtagh begins to frown, ahead of the other men. _Almost there,_ Sherlock had thought, _you proper genius, you. Off you pop._

“Why, I’d wager,” the youngest Holmes had continued, slowly and clearly and looking up to where he’d hidden the camera, “that even with all of that surgical chaos you’ve got going on at the moment... out of eight million viewers, _someone_ is watching. Right. Now.”

 _Ping_.

They hadn’t been able to hear it of course, but Sherlock grins, imagining the echo of their voices for the past ten minutes; in every sitting room, every waiting room, every pub... scaling the walls, leaping from rooftops. _You can’t stop the signal,_ his eyes had told Murtagh defiantly, _you can never stop the signal. Let’s let the people decide, then._

Alone, but not alone. He couldn’t have done it alone. They were always one step ahead of him. A web of strings and cables and wires... and _wireless_ , of course... a safety net. His brother saves his life one last time, and his sister shows him how.

“ _London!_ ” Sherlock had called out, the arms above his head straightening from suppliant to triumphant. “ _Did you miss me?!_ ”

The newspaper shuffles with a brief gust as John comes through the porch door and steps down to the lawn. “Oh, you’re out here. We haven’t chased you out of your own cottage, have we?”

Sherlock shakes his head, coming back to the present and smiling inwardly at John’s continued worry that he feels ill at ease around John’s ex-spy wife and awkward around their child. Nothing could be further from the truth. He and Mary have come to an understanding and Abigail Watson is nothing short of fascinating; a perfect fusion of her parents, but for the shockingly ginger hair. He _had_ found it puzzling... troubling even... the way that his sister had looked upon meeting John’s family. But Selby had made no comment, and Sherlock is certain that she would have if it had been something important.

“No, no, not at all,” he replies. “I just prefer to be outside.”

As he sits up, John sits beside him, moving the newspaper. “I still can’t believe you pulled that off,” he mutters, tapping the front page.

Sherlock nods to the view; rolling green fields, hushing trees, endless sky. “What do you think?”

“It’s gorgeous. Can you afford it?”

“Janine gave me a good rate.”

“Did she say why she’s looking to let it out so soon?”

“Nope.”

“Hard to imagine you out of London, though.”

He scoffs. “It’s not like I’m retiring.”

“You’re going to be bored stiff.”

“It’s only until autumn; she has it leased to someone else come October.” He grins at his friend. “I’m glad she hasn’t gotten rid of the hives yet. Bees are fascinating creatures, John, _fascinating._ ”

John looks down at the phone in his hand—Sherlock’s—and tries to pass it over. “Here. Lestrade texted you. Said they were on a new lead. Something about a sighting in a barn in Durham County.”

He gestures for him to keep it. That way he can remember where it is; his phone is always safest with John; the fixed point around which Sherlock orbits. “That’s a red herring.”

“How do you know? They may find her yet, don’t you think?”

 _No. They won’t._ He says nothing and looks out over the Downs. _Two innings,_ he thinks. For the most part, it stings... but he gets it now. He knows what it’s like to be adrift in a loud and nonsensical world and he knows that each of them had found their own ways of dealing with that; whether it was by trying to evade, trying to control or just trying to understand. In a way, he feels guiltily relieved. It had all been too much and too little and Sherlock doesn’t trust himself to handle it.

Yet.

“Peaceful, here, isn’t it?” he answers John’s questions with questions. “Quiet and out of the way... think I should come back here every spring?”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, good idea.”

For all that he often claims to not understand things, John is particularly perceptive about certain ones. Sherlock wonders if he can share the rest of what is on his mind. Then he realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what is on his mind... it’s too nebulous; the way that places and times overlap. His sister’s fleeting presence has revealed the fact that although he’s spent most of his life engrossed in solving mysteries, there has also been so much that has escaped his notice.

 

But it isn’t only about the silences that he’d never had the chance to attend to. It’s also about the ones that he’d had years to perfect.

_You’re not going to solve it all by yourself._

“Penny for your thoughts,” John asks quietly, with a faint whistle.

“I am thinking... of a...” He pauses. This is intricate and complex and more convoluted than most problems he tries to unravel. Trying to find the words is like flexing an unused muscle. He’s not sure that John will understand, but wants to take the time to try explaining anyway. It needles him like a toothache and feels heavy in his mouth like a stone.

“You know what? Never mind. I’m on holiday at the moment and my tiny brain isn’t quite fit for your usual—“

“I miss my brother,” Sherlock says.

True as the blue sky.

John laughs gently. “Imagine that. A Holmes _and_ a human.”

Sherlock grins again. “Take that _back_. There is no such animal.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a long moment. Then John, his best friend... who’s so good at this sort of thing... stands and offers out his hand to pull him to his feet.

As they dust off their trousers, the brother that he’s chosen says; “Come on. Let’s go exploring and get the lay of the land, shall we?”

They stroll through the Downs under the hum of the fascinating creatures. The land lies clean and strong in the sunshine before them and the wind blows warmly, this time from the east.

  

***


End file.
